Osama bin Laden’s Death on Twitter

There was, by all accounts, no Internet or phone access to Bin Laden’s compound. Had there been, might he have known about the attack in advance from social media?

This depends on what was being said on twitter, and when. Although lots of people in Pakistan are on Facebook, twitter would have been more useful. There’s no clear timeline yet about when the US launched its attack on the compound. But had Osama’s people been monitoring the keyword ‘abbottabad’ (or people who had previously mentioned the word), which would have been smart, they would have known that something was afoot:

notice that ReallyVirtual’s tweets are half an hour before the first news reports of the crash. His first is at 00:58 am local time:

his second seven minutes later:

But would that have been sufficient warning?

Almost certainly not. By then the operation was already over, I believe. Here’s the timeline as best as I can figure (all times are Pakistan time, i.e. GMT +5, tweets come from ReallyVirtual unless stated):

00:00 (just past)

Seal helicopter take off from Islamabad?
In Pakistan, it was just past midnight on Monday morning, and the Americans were counting on the element of surprise. As the first of the helicopters swooped in at low altitudes, neighbors heard a loud blast and gunshots (NYT)

00:35 ISL 5/2/11

First helicopters arrive on the scene, according to Pakistan news blog
NYT puts it, logically, a little bit earlier, as it called it a 40 minute raid)

Obama first learns that bin Laden was tentatively identified. Shortly after the raid, Pakistani leaders are briefed of the actions. (NPR)

00:58

Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).

01:05

Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/

?

One of their helicopters stalled and could not take off. Rather than let it fall into the wrong hands, the commandos moved the women and children to a secure area and blew up the malfunctioning helicopter. (NYT)

01:09

A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S

01:10

As they took off at 1:10 a.m. local time, taking a trove of documents and computer hard drives from the house, the Americans left behind the women and children. A Pakistani official said nine children, from 2 to 12 years old, are now in Pakistani custody. (NYT)